


You Should Have Read My Mind

by Silky_Octopus



Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Investigations, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21852895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silky_Octopus/pseuds/Silky_Octopus
Summary: A Yuletide 2019 treat for anr, loosely based upon her Yuletide letter prompt:Prompt suggestions:- Slow burn 'ship fic. Tension and wanting and feelings that neither will admit out loud until they can't deny it any longer.- Dredd and Anderson have to go on the run together, hiding undercover.I can admit it, I have a little bit of an obsession with this movie. I love Dredd's stoicism and competence; Anderson's mental skills and intuition. Anything that captures that feel of "them against the rest of the world" from the movie, and which adds in some wonderful sexual tension and wanting (and feelings) that progresses to an in-character get together will be adored forever.
Relationships: Cassandra Anderson/Joseph Dredd
Comments: 11
Kudos: 108
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	You Should Have Read My Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/gifts).



The display on her bike didn’t make any sense, so she hit the button to reset and reload the image. It still didn’t make any sense, so she tried hitting it, but all that added was a burst of static.

It was unquestionably his face. Dredd’s face. Well, his shoulders, chin and helmet. On a digital warrant. For multiple counts of murder, arson, destruction of property, and numerous sundry charges including trespassing and cruelty to animals.

“Dredd!” Her voice rang out clearly despite the perpetual roar of traffic going past them, and the constant, underlying noise of the city – the voices, the arguments, the occasional scream. He didn’t look up from where he was booking a perp they suspected was dealing Psyche, but couldn’t prove… but could prove that he was driving a vehicle with thirteen assorted mechanical and lighting deficiencies that made it unsafe to be on the public highway.

She tapped the display with a finger again, before turning and striding up to him. The perp was already handcuffed to one of the holding posts situated on every block, but Dredd was doing that thing where he stared through the opaque visor of his regulation helmet and somehow emoted such intense disappointment with his chin that sometimes people broke down and confessed to other crimes just to see if he would go away.

“Did you do something like go on a rampage through a petting zoo firing incendiary rounds at little old ladies? Because there’s a call out on my bike that makes no sense.”

His head swung towards her, and she felt more than saw that intense focus concentrated on her for a moment. “What?” For all that she was the psychic, it sometimes felt like he was trying to read her mind through sheer force of will alone… except the last six months had taught her that Dredd approached everything with that same sense of will, whether it was pursuing a suspect, exercising, or eating his breakfast cereal. Well, that latter was only probably true – she’d never actually seen him eating breakfast – but it fit his personality.

He stomped across to his bike, pulling up the most recent set of alerts. Two finger strokes brought up the alert she had been reading, and for a few seconds, he said nothing.

Then, he grunted.

Once.

“Are you going to place me under arrest, Judge Anderson?” He turned to face her, and his head tilted down towards her. Did he sound curious, or was it just her imagination?

“Well, you’ve been on duty with me for the last seven hours. We went off-shift fourteen hours ago, and I didn’t witness you committing any murders, assaults, or make any attempts at arson during that shift. That suggests to me that these charges are… in error.” She didn’t bother trying to add a sarcastic emphasis to any of her words; Dredd would simply ignore it – although once or twice in recent months, she’d felt a brief flash of something that might almost have been amusement from him, if the feeling had managed to last long enough to be pinned down.

For some reason, she had the feeling that he was frowning at her words, behind that faceplate. “You could be an accomplice to my crimes. I could also have been out committing crimes before you came on duty, having spent two hours in the rejuv-cubes so that I could return to duty without the need to sleep.” She had forgotten he did that. Policy directed that no Judge could use the rejuv-cubes for too many days in a row, but Dredd seemed to take any time where he wasn’t working as an injustice levied upon him, for the crime of being human.

“Did you go on a criminal rampage while I was asleep?” The question was direct as any she’d asked him; watching him work had been a salutary lesson in the effectiveness of direct questions on those used to prevaricating. Or perhaps she was just taking on more of his mannerisms as the city worked on her, the same way it did every Judge.

She was pushing at him, she realised – without having consciously done so. That part of her that let her wind her way around other people’s feelings, feel what they feeling, see what they were thinking, stretched out between them. She thought she’d stopped doing that; there were signs before that he was aware of it at times, and he wasn’t a criminal to be interrogated or a parent or loved one she was unconsciously seeking support from.

Even as she was pulling back, he was answering her. “I did not.” And he wanted her to believe him. That was slightly different to the usual feeling of implacability that went with most of his words.

“Then perhaps we should find out what exactly you’re alleged to have done, so we can arrest whoever it is who did do it? Preferably before someone else decides to try and arrest you. You do have a history of resisting arrest in a very aggressive fashion, after all.” OK, so sometimes she couldn’t resist the urge to jab at him a little. Something about knowing that there was something more than just that stoic expression made her want to needle him occasionally.

He grunted in response.

Once.

~~~~

When she saw the burned-out remains of the industrial warehouse at the intersection of 1227th and Clarence street, she realised it was vaguely familiar. They’d pursued someone here three… no, four months ago. In the aftermath of Ma-Ma’s fall, when Psyche – the new derivative of Slo-Mo – had been circulating for several weeks, and Judges were under orders to prioritise tracking down the sources and distribution networks.

Leaning forward, one foot up on the edge of the safety rail for better balance, Anderson swept her monoculars across the area again, seeing the wisps of smoke, the forensic processing vans, the smouldering debris. “You’re sure this is where you were this morning?”

“No.” He stood impassively next to her, his arms crossed across his chest as he looked down. “I was driving past this area to respond to a call involving a robbery at a ground-floor grocery store nearby. I was in this area for less than a minute, but the records on my bike show that all logs and monitoring traces were disrupted for fifteen minutes after transiting through this area.” That didn’t explain why Central felt that they had to put out an arrest warrant for him – particularly as it was a warrant, not a call for him to return for questioning. It was the only thing he’d mentioned that didn’t align completely with his vehicle logs or arrest logs.

“You would’ve noticed if the building was on fire at that point, even if you were focussed on something else.” She’d learned that in more than one way, from the way he chastised her for looking at a street and searching for her perp, and not seeing everything else that was happening, to the way he seemed able to pre-empt her actions at times. “On the assumption that you didn’t go on a homicidal rampage inside that building, we have to find the person who did, and determine why everyone is so convinced that this is on you.”

She didn’t bother waiting for him to grunt; instead, she simply turned away and walked over to his bike. “Unlock the security protocols and slave your bike’s systems to mine.” She could have explained why, but he probably already knew. If he didn’t, he could ask. She’d slowly overcome the urge to explain her actions to him; he either expected her to act in a fashion he considered appropriate, or he would comment. Filling the silence was a trait that indicated nervousness or guilt, he’d told her. Perps did that.

It took him less than a minute to do as she requested, without needing to ask for the ident code for her bike. Still, she nodded with approval. There was something oddly satisfying in giving him orders, for a change. “For the duration of this investigation, you’ll be my subordinate. Any investigation you attempt to conduct would taint any evidence gathered; if we’re stopped, you’re to identify yourself as my prisoner. Are we clear?”

Someone else would’ve perhaps noticed the infinitesimally slight movement back on his heels at her order; she was one of perhaps a handful of people in the city who would’ve felt the sharply supressed surprise. When he didn’t respond, she stepped closer, pointing at him – or at least, at his chin – with her elbow tucked in close to her chest. “Prisoner administration code 227, section 3B. A Judge is responsible for securing a prisoner in a fashion appropriate to allow their collection from an approved site, or for escorting them to a secure holding location in a timely fashion. I am the arresting officer. I will conduct you to a secure holding location in a timely fashion, by which I mean when I am content that we… that I… have conducted a satisfactory investigation to obtain the evidence required to prove your guilt.”

This time, his mouth definitely twisted in a sour expression. Nevertheless, he nodded. “Yes… Judge.” If Dredd was capable of sarcasm, that might almost have been a sarcastic response. Instead, he was simply looking at her. Should she disarm him? All prisoners had to be made safe before collection, but…

“Was the grocery store call genuine?” She sometimes read up on the cases he closed while she was off-duty, but she hadn’t done so consistently for the last month or so. He had stopped asking her questions about those cases, and when she’d challenged him over it, he’d simply said that now she was approaching a reasonable level of competence, it was now more efficient for him to highlight examples for her to learn from. “And if it was, how long were you there?”

Dredd turned and loaded up footage from a security camera – one of the city feeds, mounted at street level – from what was presumably his arrest record. City cameras were notorious for the poor quality of their footage at times, but this feed seemed particularly bad. It was enough to show the store though, and the city had automatically supplied a copy of the registered floorplan for the building when he had logged the call.

“I entered the premises at four seventeen am, in response to calls reporting a robbery in progress. Inside the store, I discovered the body of the alleged robber. He had been killed at short range with a shotgun; the owner of the store had such a weapon, and claimed to have used it in self-defence. I arrested him for illegal possession of a firearm at four twenty-three am, and processed the report at four twenty-six am. Pickup was at four thirty-three am.” Precise, matter of fact, and minimal. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but he pre-empted her. “There were no other civilians in the store. There was a small crowd outside who took some interest, but who cleared the street when reminded that intruding on an active crime scene is a criminal offence punishable with a minimum sentence of five years in the iso cubes per offence.”

He stopped talking as she pondered his words; assuming he was innocent of the charges meant that he was being framed, which wasn’t something that a random stranger would do. More than that, it spoke of purpose and intent.

Realising she hadn’t said anything for perhaps half a minute, she looked up at him again… and for just a moment, had the strangest feeling that he was staring at her mouth, for some reason she couldn’t put a finger on.

“You’re being very calm about this, Dredd.” And he was; strong emotions were the easiest to pick up unintentionally, and nothing like that was poking at the edges of her temples. “Have you been accused of murder before?”

That question bought another twist to his mouth. “On multiple occasions.” Even if she couldn’t feel it, she could hear the contempt in his tone. “Usually by those protesting at the judgement dispensed on friends and relatives guilty of capital offences. I’ve also been the subject of four unsuccessful attempts at false convictions using planted evidence, and twice someone has attempted to make me appear to be the guilty party in a crime through falsely edited or created imagery.”

She had been warned repeatedly during her cadet years that she would frequently be targeted by upset people protesting against any judgement served, particularly any that involved a summary execution. Given that Dredd was one of the most experienced street Judges, it would’ve been a surprise if he hadn’t received multiple threats. The falsely edited or created imagery was interesting, though. That took a certain level of sophistication, depending on where the faked evidence had been obtained; there had been cases of people managing to slip altered streetcam footage into the main information system controlling the cameras, which had caused a furore and heavy investment in increased security. Then there had been that hacker who had decided to create those fake pornographic films, using footage from the public net to graft the heads or faces of Judges into material of dubious legality…

“Technically, I can’t go off duty with a prisoner in my charge. The rap sheet issued for you is fairly light on details, given the charges. I’m going to need to run through the reports in more detail, and I would prefer to do it somewhere that isn’t within line of sight of an active crime scene.” He was watching her impassively again, waiting for her to finish. Or perhaps he didn’t have any suggestions? That would be unlike him, though.

Tucking the monoculars back into their case, she walked back to her bike. “You and I both know how many crimes go unsolved in this city, or even fail to elicit a response, due to the constant shortfall of Judges. I presume that you’re not going to get yourself arrested by another Judge…” or shot, or otherwise incapacitated, she added silently. “… so, I trust you’ll have no objections to us waiting in a discrete location while we work.”

She could see Dredd in her mirrors, settling down in the seat of his bike, reflexively reaching to activate the onboard computer before remembering that his systems were slaved to hers. “I promise not to attempt to escape arrest, Anderson.” 

“In that case, I won’t handcuff you to your Lawmaster.”

~~~~

The lighting was rather on the dingy side, but at least the drive-in cinemplex held the advantage of lots of individual enclosures and a complete lack of curious staff members wandering around wanting to ask questions. Each cubicle held little more than a parking spot, a large and rather old screen – which was actually mostly intact, in their cubicle – and a holoprojection of a fake starry night sky on the ceiling above them, intended to replicate the look and feel of being outdoors. Or at least, outdoors in some other era where the stars weren’t completely masked from sight by high levels of pollution.

The food had been disappointing, consisting primarily of grease and some kind of recombined carbohydrate, but they needed the calories. Most of all, she needed the space to think.

Dredd was sitting against the wall, his elbows on his knees as he scrolled through something on the tablet he held, linked to his bike’s computer. As his bike was slaved to hers, she could throw a cast of whatever he was reading up on her own display, but she was busy with going over the fine detail in the paperwork accompanying the arrest order. 

The evidence was… both more and less circumstantial than she’d expected. No camera footage had been supplied, with a notation indicating that the street cameras in the area had apparently been disrupted or out of order in some fashion. Despite that, the initial pass by the forensic techs had detected Dredd’s DNA at multiple points within the structure, having apparently survived the fire, and had his DNA had been found on multiple bodies. None of the dead had been killed using a Lawgiver; instead, they appeared to have died to physical violence in one form or another, and a number of the injury patterns had matched disabling or killing strikes caught in the academy. No witnesses had been identified, but – in a fashion that seemed distinctly implausible to her – one of the victims had apparently scrawled the letters “DRED” in his own blood before expiring.

An initial pattern match to confirm Dredd’s presence elsewhere in the city had returned no results, prompting a more thorough search, including an attempt to locate his bike via the installed GPS. This had also turned up no specific results, although a signal had been detected and tracked to close proximity to the crime scene, but with an unusually large error margin due to “unidentified technical issues.” The approximate location included the crime scene, but also the location of the grocery that Dredd reported being at. However, the streetcam footage Dredd had shown her of the grocery store didn’t match what she had pulled from the live system, despite the matching time sync codes.

Leaning against the seat of her bike, Anderson spent a minute or so looking at Dredd over the top of her tablet. She could feel anger in him now, something that felt like a mix of the taste of iron and the smell of something sharply actinic. How would she be feeling in his place? A part of her had to admit that if it were her, she’d be looking to him to provide answers.

“There is no direct evidence, forensic or otherwise, listed at the moment.”

Dredd grunted in response.

Once.

She set another search running through the datalink from her Lawmaster back to the central computers. The parameters were unfortunately broad, which meant that it would like take an hour or more to run. That didn’t stop her mind from turning over ideas, though.

It also made her more tempted to review what Dredd was doing. Instead, she simply watched him for a minute. He had a remarkable capacity for stillness; other than the fingerstrokes propelling something up the display on the tablet, he might have been a statue.

She had to be careful; her mind kept reaching out towards him, wanting to fill the gaps in her understanding, in a way that would be illegal if there were laws governing the use of abilities like her own. It was one thing to pick up on emotions being projected outwards, but another to slide into someone’s mind and rummage around. Normally, her self-control was much stronger – it had to be. You couldn’t live when coming to close to someone, let alone coming into contact with them – brushing past them on the street, standing on public transport, waiting in a queue – led to their inner thoughts spilling into your mind, showing you what they were thinking and feeling. Worse still, potentially dragging you into their thoughts, to where they could perceive you… interact with you.

That was one of the reasons she was grateful for the opportunity to keep working with him; it wasn’t that his thoughts were more difficult to read than those of others would be… it’s that he somehow kept himself either locked down inside his own head, or projected a single image of what he was focussing on, or what he was making himself feel.

“What would you do if they dismiss you from the Judges?” She didn’t know what part of her mind the question had floated up from, while she was thinking about him. She knew it was a potential outcome, if neither his guilt nor his innocence could be proven.

Wherever her question had come from, it had shaken him for an instant. She could feel that much without trying to. His hand went still for a few seconds, and then the tablet dropped down to a horizontal position as his gaze shifted slightly to look directly at her.

“We’ll prove my innocence. Or you will, as the lead investigator. Or sole investigator, technically.” Her abilities reached out a little more towards him, brushing gently against his emotions. She should have stopped it, but she didn’t. Not quite yet. That unflappable feeling of focus was there again, as resolute as ever.

To her, it felt like tendrils of spiderweb were bridging the gap between them, gossamer thin and so light they should drift away in the slightest breeze. “Do you have any interests outside of being a Judge, Dredd? Your life can’t be all about work, or you would have gone mad years ago.”

She sensed a brief ripple of … something. Confusion? Uncertainty? “You know that I teach classes at the academy on an occasional basis.” The pause before his words was… interesting. Was he searching for something to say? Or was he trying to think of something she would understand.

“Ethics, I seem to remember. Before and after the referendum on whether the Justice Department should exist.” She had watched recordings of some of the lectures, wondering what his stance would be. For someone who had turned down senior roles to remain a street Judge, Dredd had argued the complexities of certain justice issues with a surprising – to her, at least – degree of flexibility. “Nothing else? No… stamp collecting? Popular media? Sporting team interests? Beyond arresting Chopper periodically, I mean?”

Dredd’s chin rose, very slightly. That he would arrest Chopper the first time was a certainty; what almost no-one had expected was for him to allow Chopper to try and finish the race before arresting him.

She didn’t need her abilities to know that he’d become guarded, wary, but she could feel a flicker of… something. “I fail to see the relevance of this to our case, Anderson.”

“Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you couldn’t be a judge? We have the rejuvenation treatments, and the other medical techniques to keep us fit and healthy for longer, and bionics to replace lost limbs or organs, and the Long Walk is always waiting… but some do retire. Or are invalided out.” That definitely got to him; he didn’t physically react, but in her head, she could feel him pulling back sharply.

And then he was angry. She could feel it, snapping through him. Defensively so? Or something else? It couldn’t be fear – she knew him enough to know that he wasn’t a mutant who never felt fear, but rather than he’d spent so long using it to drive his will rather than undercut it that it barely registered.

The tablet snapped back up to the vertical. “I’m going to be a Judge until I die, Anderson. Assuming that you do your job properly. The odds of any Judge taking the Long Walk are just a few percent, as you know. The city claims the rest of us, sooner or later.”

She watched him, felt the tension in him. “That seems a shame. If you had no choice but to leave… you could spend more time with your niece, maybe. Do charity work. Act as a legal advocate.” Although she’d never met Vienna Rico, she knew about her. A lot of Judges did, even if they never spoke about her.

He grunted.

Once.

“You could go on television. Mega-City One’s most eligible bachelors.” The flare of disgust that ran through him was so strong that she was surprised the artificial stars above her didn’t flicker. Or perhaps go nova. There had been a Judge once, who’d pursued an obsessive romantic interest in Dredd. DeMarco? Something like that.

She felt the walls around him being reinforced, stronger and thicker than usual. Perhaps she should’ve suggested he take up cooking. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Intruded on your family? Brought up bad memories? What would he… “suggested you weren’t dedicated to your work as a Judge.”

He grunted.

Once.

For several uncomfortable minutes, she performed makework on her tablet, reviewing yet again the evidence from the crime scene, and the edited footage. Finally, she lowered the tablet to look at him again… knowing that he saw her looking. “You could have a life outside of being a Judge, though. Something that makes you happy, that isn’t… driven by a sense of duty and responsibility.”

There were plenty of people in history who’d dedicated their entire lives to a singular purpose, although those that sprang to mind tended to be religious in one way or another.

“I am what I do, Anderson. Not because that’s the only thing I can do, or the only thing I want, but because it’s the thing that I chose. And that I continue to choose. And I plan on continuing to do that for a very long time.”

She found herself smiling, very ruefully. Perhaps that really was all that he wanted. She suspected that there were some in the city who’d call him a hero for it. 

He was still looking at her, though. She could feel it. “No regrets?”

He didn’t respond, but she felt his emotions… shift. Not weaken, not … move … but adjust somehow.

And before she could stop herself, she was reaching out to touch that shape, and…

Heat enveloped her. Not a gentle warmth. Not a ripple. Not that gentle, pleasant tingle. An almost overwhelming wall of heat that made her scalp tingle as if the skin were pulling tight at the same time that he toes wanted to curl into fists inside her boots. It was complete, and enveloping, and gloriously, dangerously intense; it couldn’t run through her, because that implied it was moving.

And then it was gone, those same walls back every bit as intensely and strongly as usual, and he sounded as casual as he ever did when he spoke. “Learn to live with regrets. That way, you learn, rather than let them control your life.”

She didn’t answer; it was all she could do not to gasp at the sudden absence of the feeling, and if she weren’t already braced by the bike, she might have staggered. Closing her eyes, she did her best to recall that feeling, barely hearing what he’d said, to try and hold on to it for just a little while, before guilt at invading his mind became all she could think about, before her breathing returned to normal.

Definitely not cooking.

~~~~

In the end, it seemed the explanation was likely to be simpler than she’d imagined. Her request to run a search and comparison of all traffic that had moved into or out of the area around the mysterious technical failure had turned up a couple of thousand vehicles that had made more than two journeys. A lot of those were people who preferred to live a nomadic life in their mo-pads, rather than settling in a block. Others were goods vehicles, or traders, or service vehicles which she ruled out because of the likelihood of them having a legitimate purpose for travel, although she flagged all of them up for later examination in case her efforts were fruitless.

When she’d narrowed the list down to a couple of hundred vehicles, she’d moved over to sit next to Dredd, propping herself up against the wall… and not realising until she was already on the ground that she was a little closer than she’d planned. Not a huge amount, but enough to make her aware of him in a way that… wasn’t uncomfortable, but also wasn’t relaxing.

She cast her display across to his tablet, with the first of the camera shots. “There are a couple of hundred vehicles with no obvious legitimate reason for passing by the general area with the electronic disruption more than twice within a six-hour period. I expected it to be more, but this is a manageable number.”

He grunted, and used his thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the driver of the vehicle on the display. “They should be easy to review. I’ve been working my way back through registers of electrical, construction or other workers with permits to work in the area who had activities registered for today, but haven’t found anything yet.”

She nodded, and started scrolling through the images, working in reverse order to the search pattern he was using. Each time he grunted, she looked at him, but each time, the person seemed unlikely to both of them – each of the first three was someone Dredd recognised as having been the subject of judgement by him, but all for relatively minor offences, that didn’t involve violence.

She was starting to wonder if she would have to start going through the service vehicles when something made her scroll back a couple of images. The vehicle itself was relatively nondescript, although the driver had made some dubious fashion choices with their outfit. Despite that…

The majority of the population were unemployed. There was so little available employment that the city run numerous programmes encouraging the unemployed to develop and maintain hobbies or undertake charitable work as a means of keeping them from unproductive or even criminal behaviour. That encouraged a lot of strange activities, fashions and pursuits that she didn’t understand, so seeing oddly-dressed people was more common than uncommon. There was something, though; something tugging at her eyes… or perhaps her mind.

Dredd had turned his head, and was looking at her – or her tablet, or both. It was difficult to tell without staring at him, and she didn’t want to break her focus.

“Well done, Anderson.”

The words disturbed her train of thought, and her instinctive reaction was to snap at him, although she had the discipline needed to curb that instinct. Instead, she glared at him. “What?”

He tilted his tablet so that she could see the image on it – the same one she’d been looking at. Manipulating it to zoom in somewhat, he then instructed it to bring up the thirty frames of video footage to either side of the main frame. The system had picked that frame as the primary frame because the driver was pictured most clearly, but as he scrolled the image to move back and forth in time, she could see he was focussing not on the driver, but someone sitting behind the driver.

The hand and the side of the face in blurred profile. That’s what had been tugging at her mind. The driver was dressed in such a distracting fashion that even though her subconscious was trying to pull her towards the second figure, her waking mind had been distracting her.

As Dredd scrolled back and forth, she could see the figure more clearly. It was never completely clear, but it was… distinctive. Dark skinned, bald, some facial hair, arc-shaped tattoo above the ear.

And an artificial hand. A hand whose absence she recognised immediately.

Kay.

“I was under the impression he was under sentence of death for multiple homicides, the attempted murder of a Judge, and sundry other crimes.” Dredd sounded… annoyed. Not just sounded. Felt. She could feel it roiling under the barrier of his self-discipline, like a roiling ocean of violet flame.

Dredd was angry a lot, but it was usually a tightly controlled, very focussed anger. This was more general. It seemed to have more… depth… to it. A slightly different flavour.

And then it was gone, locked down behind a wall that made granite look soft and yielding.

She pulled up the arrest record for Kay… and discovered that he was listed as missing. A retrieval unit had been dispatched to recover him after their last encounter at Peach Trees, but hadn’t been able to find him. 

She honestly thought she’d broken his neck.

She felt obliged to play devil’s advocate. “His appearance may be an unrelated event.” She uploaded the best image she could composite of him and the vehicle, and sent a query to the Justice Department mainframe for additional traffic sightings of that vehicle and of Kay’s movements.

“My search will take time to run. I’m going to keep checking the records. You should sleep, Dredd.” Returning to the downloaded images, she continued scanning through them.

Dredd hadn’t responded, so she continued talking. Without looking at him. “You said yourself that you used the rejuv-cubes this morning. You also used them for the last two nights. As the lead investigator on this case, I’m obliged to monitor your well-being where appropriate. So, sleep.”

Dredd grunted.

Once.

But he also leaned his head back until his helmet was resting against the wall, settled his legs out straight in front of him, and then crossed his arms. Within minutes, he was asleep.

It wouldn’t be the most productive sleep, particularly after three sessions in the rejuv-cubes, but she’d let him rest while she could.

Two hours later, she was content that she’d searched through all of the images most likely to contain a useful suspect, although even with the Lawmaster computer running automatic checks matching drivers against warrants and suspect photos – a process that had brought up more than fifty people with varying classes of outstanding arrest warrants for low-level offences – she hadn’t examined every single vehicle.

When the compiled search return arrived, she called it up on her tablet and began viewing the results. Dredd was on his second or third cycle of REM sleep – it was hard to tell which, but when he hit certain sleep states, the emotions from his dreams started to creep through. She’d tried hard to avoid other people’s dreams, growing up; living with her parents was difficult enough, but dreams abandoned all pretence at reality. Swirling vortexes of images and emotions, she imagined that viewing someone else’s dreams must be akin to what others felt when they hallucinated on various illegal psychotropics.

Blocking out Dredd’s dreams was largely an automatic process, although they brushed gently against her mind, a little like hearing a television that had been left on in another room, somewhere behind an open doorway but out of direct sight. One of his dreams was a grey dream, a busy dream with levels of anxiety in it but somewhere short of a full-on nightmare. It was hard to imagine that there was anything that could terrify Dredd, awake or asleep.

Another dream felt like his subconscious trying to tell him something. Image after image, something tugging at him in need of resolution. And another dream…

Another dream, she deliberately blocked. It was one thing to slip into his mind while he was awake, and could argue. It was another to pillage his dreams, where he couldn’t resist.

She hadn’t suspected that he thought she was so… flexible, though.

Pulling a wall around her mind again inside her head, she deliberately set herself to review the results on Kay’s movements. It appeared he mostly managed to stay under the radar, but the computers had picked him up at a dozen different points across the nearest fifteen or so blocks. There was only one region he’d passed through multiple times though, and all in the last 48 hours. The same region that had suffered the mysterious electronic signal issues… which she was convinced were some kind of illegal jamming or interference of some kind.

That was purely circumstantial, of course. A criminal being in proximity to a crime scene wasn’t uncommon in a city with this much criminal activity, particularly in a more deprived region like this. It was an active line of investigation that should be pursued, though.

So, what did she do with the theory? The most recent sighting of Kay on a security camera was eight hours ago. The odds of him still being there were less than optimal but it was still her best prospect.

She was about to reach out and nudge Dredd when she decided that he might not be the safest person to wake up through physical contact. Levering herself up from her seated position – something that took more effort than she was comfortable with – she hobbled across to her bike and set her tablet back into its recessed storage slot.

Looking across to where Dredd was still asleep, she was tempted to reach out to touch his dreams again. When she woke him up, they’d be on the road again. They’d be into what would probably be the last few hours of freedom Dredd would have, if they didn’t manage to come up with clear evidence of his innocence. This might be the last few moments of peace he had for a while.

Thinking for a few moments, she paused, and then spent a few minutes doing stretching exercises, as if she were limbering up before her shift, using the exercise forms that cleared and quietened her mind. It didn’t take long for her to feel clearer and sharper, to feel her muscles warming and stretching. When she was satisfied that she was ready, she turned and swung her leg over her bike, settling into place and gripping the handlebars.

Feeling satisfied, she rolled her bike back a couple of feet and turned, so that the front headlight was pointing towards him.

When she triggered the light, he woke with a start, right hand automatically flying to where his Lawgiver was holstered; whatever his instinctive response, he stopped short of drawing it.

“Anderson.” His voice was lower, more gravelly than usual. A side effect of sleep she’d never heard in his voice before. Did he sound like that every time he woke up?

“Time for us to move, Dredd.”

He grunted.

Once.

Then he levered himself up to a standing position. With a certain amount of satisfaction, she watched him take a couple of unsteady steps towards his bike, before deliberately stopping and putting his hands together, tightly clenched above his head. She watched him, just for a second, before calling out to him. “Getting old, Dredd?”

Oh, she felt the stab of anger at that comment.

And knotted through it, amusement, threads of gold among the angry red.

He climbed onto his bike and shifted it to face out of the area they’d been resting in. “I’m ready.”

Looking at him, she nodded slightly. “You look ready.”

~~~~

Box Boom Blooms was officially registered as an indoor vertical horticultural company, producing edibles and display flowers for the inhabitants of Mega-City One. There were thousands, tens of thousands of similar companies, of varying degrees of profitability and scope. A significant number weren’t profitable at all, and were invariably abandoned, or taken over by other concerns; with the Resyk plants supporting the forced agriculture and artificial food production that kept the city fed, there weren’t many with the money to afford fresh food, let alone flowers.

Anderson was very much of the opinion that this was one such failed company, being repurposed for another use. Based on her limited interactions with Kay, the production of narcotics of some kind seemed like the most likely proposition; she had no reason to believe that he’d decided to take up a career in agriculture.

The company information downloaded to her Lawmaster gave the names of the registered employees, and cross referencing that with the traffic cams gave her a good idea of how many of those were actually still working there. It also gave her pictures and records of various couriers, delivery drivers and others who interacted with the company.

Kay didn’t show up in the records over the last week… but his esoterically-attired driver did, on all bar one day. That day had been yesterday.

It was almost ten in the evening. Mega-City One never really slept, but it was the time of day where the businesses that were open legitimately tended to be within the towers, rather than outside. The gangs were more active at night, which actually suited the Judges; quieter roads made it an easier time of day to operate, although no time was ever really “easy”. Box Boom Bloom was still operating; although the external lights had been dampened – other than several sets of lights probably connected to motion sensors, based on the way in which they intermittently flickered on – light was visible leaking out from around the loading doors, and from a number of the windows.

She’d switched to the infra-red filter on her monoculars, and had taken the time to sweep the building from several different approaches, careful in each instance to remain at least a hundred yards away from the building; far enough that the performance of the monoculars was diminished, but not to an unusable degree. She wasn’t certain what an agricultural building would include. She knew that the plants were force-grown, using chemicals and constant light; that suggested that there should be power sources running constantly, heating, and lighting systems. She was rather more familiar with what an operational drugs manufacturing facility would look like, having been involved in clearing perhaps half a dozen. 

Throughout her observation of the site, Dredd had followed her, a silent presence at her back; he’d used his own monoculars, but hadn’t discussed his thoughts on the site. That wasn’t unusual. He preferred to wait for her to talk, and then he’d add anything he felt she’d missed – or occasionally point out that she’d performed a comprehensive analysis. 

The images recorded by both sets of monoculars went into her Lawmaster’s memory, and meshed with the blueprints held by the city to produce a simple three-dimensional model. “Code 20, Section 2.” The first words Dredd had spoken in more than an hour. Contraband – possession or manufacture of an undetermined but prohibited substance. The section would be replaced later with the appropriate code for the substance in question, once it had been identified.

She made an acknowledging noise, focussed on the model, moving it to tease out details her eyes might have missed. She was confident in the integrity of their body armour, but barging in through the main doors wasn’t always the best of options.

Looking across at the building, she had to wonder how many people could be in it. The large blocks averaged two hundred floors each, but a side effect of their sheer scale was that other buildings in the city were much shorter; with the population relatively concentrated, it avoided the need for every building to be twenty or thirty stories high.

Dredd was looking at her. The thought intruded on her thoughts, and for a moment she wondered if she’d missed him saying something. She’d been up for eighteen hours, which wasn’t that unusual, but every week was a hard week as she worked towards her class one rating. Dredd didn’t mentor many judges personally, but those he did, tended to make Senior Street Judge approximately eighteen months faster than the average. Or they washed out.

She looked at him, and he tilted his helmet slightly. She was fairly sure she hadn’t missed him saying anything, but… “What?”

“You grunted.”

She what? She felt her powers starting to reach out, fuelled by a vague but growing feeling of irritation. “Is that relevant, Dredd?”

The left-hand corner of his mouth moved. Very slightly, but enough that she noticed. “You should be tired more often, Anderson. It makes you appear more authoritative.”

He stepped up to her bike, and tapped the monitor. The onboard computer wouldn’t respond to his touch while his bike was slaved to her, but he wasn’t trying to manipulate the screen. “We haven’t seen anyone leave since we arrived, but we have seen two delivery lorries arrive. Neither of them were refrigerated vehicles, and yet both were loaded. It’s too early for runs to any of the upper-class eating establishments, and the all-night venues can’t afford fresh food. It’s almost certainly an illegal operation.”

“I’d already worked that out. I’m simply trying to determine the best way to determine if Kay’s there, and if he is, to make sure we can capture him.” She was more than willing to believe that he was alive and in this up to his neck, but the judicial system wouldn’t recognise her speculations as any kind of valid evidence on their own. And if he wasn’t involved, he’d simply be one more criminal brought in on an outstanding warrant.

“Most street criminals aren’t that clever, Anderson. They take and control territory through violence, aggression and numbers, and they hold it through ruthlessness. In some ways, we’re simply a bigger gang than they are.” She’d had similar thoughts, although she’d never spelled them out so starkly. She knew it wasn’t universally true – there were sections of the Justice Department dedicated to financial crimes, cyber-crimes… but it was the street that sucked up so many Judges and spat them out. She gestured for him to keep talking.

He shifted slightly, so that he was facing her directly, rather than at an angle. She was struck with the odd thought that she probably didn’t smell any better than he did, after so long a shift, with the street ground into their pores, their suits, their skin. And yet, there was something familiar about it. “If we smash this operation, either Kay will be there, or he’ll come to investigate. Criminals don’t walk away from what they think is theirs. Most people have so little by way of material assets that everything these criminals hold places them a step above the average citizen, in their own minds. He won’t be able to help himself. And then, he’ll either try to kill us, or he’ll run, depending on the threat. We can deal with either.”

She finished his thought for him. “And we don’t really have the time for anything else.” She looked down at the building again, before reaching down to pick up her helmet. Settling it down evenly on her head, she felt it pulling her powers back in, stunting them, but she knew she would be at the greatest risk during the early moments of any attempt to clear the building.

As Dredd walked back to his bike, she typed her command codes quickly into her own, reducing the level of direct control she had over his Lawmaster. That would be logged by central; whether they would consider it significant enough to investigate was… improbable. Too few Judges, too many crimes, and Dredd was still technically in custody.

“I’ve been inside Kay’s head, more than once. He’s simple. He craves the feeling of control that comes to violence. He hates to have his self-appointed authority challenged, particularly by a woman. And I’ve already humiliated him, more than once. If you take point, you’ll have more chance of taking him when he makes his attempt to kill me.” Three months ago, saying that would have left her with fear trickling through the defences her training… her life… had given her. Now, it was something else.

The fear was still there, but it was happening to someone else. She would let it weave its way around her, but she would use it. Just as she used her anger. She would not be another broken Judge.

Anger was pouring out of Dredd in a rolling wave, hot and bitter. “Kay’s crimes carry the death penalty, on multiple accounts.” She didn’t bother putting barriers up against that anger; instead, she let it roll through her, let herself feel what he was feeling.

It was almost like he was concerned for her.

She didn’t argue with him. One thing you could count on with Dredd; he always did the just thing.

When their bikes tore into the loading area behind the Box Boom Blooms building, they had their sirens and lights going. The sound of sirens was fairly common in Mega-City One, but as always, she saw lights on the nearest buildings coming on as they ground to a halt, and people began looking out in hopes of free entertainment.

Her helmet might constrain her powers, limiting their usefulness, but even with them dampened, she could feel at least three sources of panic inside the building. They had everyone’s attention. As Judges, they were legally bound to try and limit the damage to property in situations where it could be avoided, so they didn’t go with her preferred option and use exploding rounds from the Lawmasters to tear open the loading bay doors.

Dredd stormed towards the access door next to the leftmost loading bay; she went for the door’s mirror, located at the right end. The doors might be on a commercial building, but they didn’t appear to be steel-reinforced from the footage they’d obtained; she heard the crunch of Dredd kicking the door in, and as she closed on her door she could see the steel locking plate with an inset keylock.

There were several methods taught during training for removing doors that were obstructing an arrest – including methods such as identifying when the surrounding wall was weaker than a door, and going through that instead. The idea of shooting a lock out was roundly condemned as a popular myth implanted in the collective consciousness by poorly-thought out media. Locks tended to be big bits of metal. Bullets are relatively small. Shooting a lock out meant a ricochet, and few results other than injuring yourself or someone else with your bullet.

She could use a high explosive round against the door; with her powers, she could be certain that there was no-one else standing behind it, unlike her fellow Judges. There were times when it paid not to rely on those abilities, though… which is why, as Dredd’s boot crashed against his door, she was swinging the hand-held metal battering ram she’d removed from her Lawmaster’s underbody storage compartment. The jolt as it slammed into the door two handspans below the lock reverberated up through her arms, but her feet were set solidly, she’d put her body into the swing, and she was coldly, murderously furious.

The door snapped sharply, swinging open into the building; before the battering ram had clattered to the floor, she had her Lawgiver up in one hand in front of her, and by the time she was two steps into the building it was firmly held in place in the regulation two-handed grip, swinging from side to side and upwards as she covered her side of the loading bay and Dredd’s back.

She can hear Dredd bellowing out the demand for all citizens to drop to their knees and lock their hands behind their heads. “We are the law! This building is sealed and under judgement on suspicion of illegal activity.” Months of doing this, and still her voice echoed inside her own skull… and her own helmet. 

She had compromised with Dredd two months ago. She wore her helmet during any initial breach, for the same reason that she wore it when they were on the road. As soon as the scene appeared to be under control…

As they moved, the handful of people in the room quickly dropped to their knees, two of them going so far as to lie flat out on the floor. None showed any signs of having a firearm, and the space was wide and largely clear. She tugged her helmet off with her left hand, snapping it into place against the lock on the back of her belt. The feeling of her powers being able to reach out again unimpeded was like that first breath of air when you stepped onto a high balcony; like regaining your hearing after diving into a swimming pool.

Dredd was covering them, but from the way he stepped several paces to one side, she could see that he was adjusting to where he could cover the visible entry points into the loading dock. She was covering the prisoners. And him.

The tactical hearing protection system she was wearing still felt strange in her ears, even after all these months, but she had to admit that it worked. Without the helmet’s muffling effect, it was almost like being able to hear normally… including the whimpering from at least one of the civilians.

Dredd didn’t say anything as she went to work. Of all the Judges she’d worked with, who’d trained her, he was the quickest to simply leave her to work, and let her tell him the results. Others pushed, trying to work out what she could do – or, in more annoying cases, tried to tell her to use her powers, without being in anyway telepathic or empathic themselves. Male Judges seemed to be particularly prone to this, for some reason.

She let her abilities sweep across the people in front of her, circling, looking for the things that stood out. All of them were afraid. Several of them were afraid of them, most of all. Not all of the fear was coming their way, though…

One of the women was afraid that they were here to Judge her for hiding her daughter from the city officials. She was certain her daughter was a mutant, and from what Anderson could read in her thoughts, was probably right. She wasn’t obliged to bring the woman in, though; not just because of the change in the law that did more than simply exile mutants to settlements in the Cursed Earth, but also because the Judges’ code of conduct and laws had some surprisingly large holes in it where psychic Judges were concerned.

Three more were scared… because they were looking at Judges. And because of unpaid fines or other minor infractions. And the last two…

Their thoughts spiralled, circling around and around as fear from two different sources clashed, locking them into a state close to mental paralysis. That prompted her to walk towards them, pushing them. “This goes more easily for everyone if you tell Judge Dredd what he wants to know.”

Dredd was watching her; she knew that without turning around, the same way she always knew, the same way that she had always known where her parents were in the building they lived in. “She’s right.” One of them wanted to speak. She knew that much.

“You. You. You. And you.” She singled out the four that knew nothing relevant. “Move out to your local fire evacuation point and remain there until instructed to return to work. Do you understand?” The four scrambled to their feet, one with a little help from a second, and scrambled out through the door she’d entered through.

That left just two. It had been more than a minute. If there were guards, they’d be responding. If they were any good, they’d be there already.

Dredd was glowering at the two remaining suspects, and both were trying to avoid looking at him; their fear was intense enough that her own legs felt like they were starting to tremble in sympathy with the emotions they were projecting.

Switching to her as the less threatening of the Judges, one of them started to stammer. “We look after the hydro … the pods … the hydro … the …” a shaking hand started gesturing behind him, while the other simply stared.

Her legs were still shaking. Her abilities were already starting to gently brush against Dredd’s emotions, pulling on his resolve to stabilise her own mood, but it didn’t seem to be helping. Except…

Dredd clearly had the same realisation she did at the same moment because he moved as she did, barrelling the two suspects backwards as she ran towards them, feeling the shift in the concrete under their feet.

The two suspects hit the far wall an instant before she and Dredd did, before she looked down to check to make sure that her feet were clear of whatever was going on; as a result she had a perfect view of the shift as the a large section of the floor dropped eighteen inches before swinging away, leaving a space twelve feet by twelve in the floor with a view down into what was clearly some kind off extended basement or cellar… one that was lit up as bright as day.

It was a compelling sight, but her first week had already taught her enough about not being distracted; no, not her first week. Her first day. As a result, she saw the guards rushing in along the metal walkways running above them at the same time Dredd did, and was pushing one of the suspects down onto the concrete while automatically bringing her Lawgiver up to cover the walkways on her side of the building.

“You are currently committing a number of felonies. Surrender immediately to custody, and you will avoid a number of capital crimes.” Dredd’s voice was loud, but clear and calm. He didn’t even sound annoyed.

She decided to add a little emphasis. With this many minds in one room, she would have to concentrate to read more than two or three at a time, particularly if she wanted more than surface impressions. “Code 01-01. Attempted murder of a Judge. Life imprisonment. Code 01-03. Attempted murder. Fifteen years to life. Code 02-01. Assault on a Judge. Ten years. Code 02-02. Assault on a citizen. Five years. Shall I continue through the lesser charges of possessing an illegal firearm, obstruction of justice, and various contraband charges related to narcotics, or will you be smart and comply?”

A mocking laugh came from somewhere above her, but she didn’t bother looking up; it might well be a deliberate distraction, and she’d memorised enough of this room on the way in to know that the walkway running across this end of the room didn’t offer a direct firing line.

Even so, she knew the mind above her; to her, it was as distinctive as a fingerprint, a photograph, the sound of someone’s stride.

Kay.

His emotions were a toxic mixture, just like before. Part of her wanted to recoil from his mind; another part wanted to rip his mind out and tie it in knots, leave him locked inside his own waking nightmare. She was sure she’d broken his neck last time, and she was more than ready to make sure of it this time.

The sensible thing to do was to let him keep talking, and see if he’d be stupid enough to convict himself. Or at least, convict himself of further crimes – his status as a still-living person reaffirmed the charges against him from her trip to Peachtrees, and any previous crimes he may have committed. After all, as Dredd had pointed out… He wasn’t clever. He was also likely to focus on her, over Dredd.

He didn’t disappoint her. He strolled out onto the walkway to her right, walking past the three gang members with automatic weapons lined up there, looking very full of himself. No, not strolling… strutting, gesturing at her with a cybernetic hand. She didn’t process his first few words; she was looking at the brace she could see running up the back of his neck. Some kind of providence had clearly allowed someone to get him to a medical facility. That was… unfortunate.

Dredd wasn’t watching him directly; instead, he appeared to be focussed on the three minds she could sense on the walkway directly above her. Seven-to-two odds were nothing unusual, although she would’ve preferred it if the hostile perps weren’t above her, although they wouldn’t be able to shoot directly down at her without leaning out over the walkway edge. Or using armour-piercing rounds.

She hoped they didn’t have armour-piercing rounds. That always increased the risk of civilian casualties significantly.

She made herself stop and listen; Kay was saying something about how clever he was to have framed Dredd, along with something insulting about her manipulating Dredd. For someone convinced of their own genius and significance, he definitely had a tendency towards the tedious. Six months ago, he’d been able to make her afraid. Now, she was irritated.

Well, not just irritated. There was the distinct chance that his followers might kill or injure both of them, and the two civilians cowering on the ground next to her. So, she kept one ear on him, while making sure she shifted slightly as he strutted, keeping him nicely centred for her bodycam.

“Was burning down a building and clumsily faking evidence really the best you could come up with?” She hadn’t originally intended to interrupt, but he was droning on. Plus, it might help provoke him into a confession as he attempted to demonstrate his supposed superiority…

Puffing up like some kind of demented sports team mascot, Kay gripped the edge of his walkway and leaned forward, angry words pouring out in response to her impertinence in questioning his ability to retrieve DNA samples from the locations within Peachtrees – particularly the location where Dredd had been shot – and the crime-related wealth that allowed him to find suitably qualified and amoral technical staff to allow him to interfere with cameras. As a book plot, she would have given it no more than a “C” for effort. Well, perhaps a C+. After all, a returning villain believed dead did take a certain amount of effort.

Then she shot him.

Dredd’s response time was quick enough that before Kay’s body had finished hitting the metal base of the walkway, he’d already shot two of the people above her; she followed suit, with only one of her targets managing to squeeze off a semi-automatic blurt of gunfire that caused a couple of ricochets but no injuries.

With a cursory check to satisfy herself that the civilians were uninjured, she walked carefully around the open void in the floor – a building code health and safety violation, carrying a minimum sentence – she climbed up the latter to the walkway. She knew Dredd was watching, and that any gang member attempting to play dead only to ambush her would quickly become definitively dead. Dredd was very consistent in some ways.

Able to look at them directly, she was unimpressed by the gang members. Each gang tried to make themselves look distinct and powerful in some form, but the end result was that they quickly became a blurred pastiche of similar themes that ran into each other in her memory.

The walkways ran through the wall, and she could hear her own footsteps ring as she walked along the walkway she’d chosen. The space on the other side looked like any other light industrial facility; some grow beds, some cubicle-based open office segments. No-one seemed to be moving around; the heat and energy sources they’d observed from outside were most probably based in the underground facility. It wasn’t unusual for places to have unregistered underground voids; Mega-City One had incorporated many cities during its creation, and lots of spaces had been rebuilt or built over.

Dredd was waiting for her as she walked back along the walkway; he’d moved up to where he could cover her, but not followed.

“Everything’s underground. I’ll call Tek-Division and pass them the details. If he’d had more backup here, he would have brought them out with him, to try and impress me if nothing else.”

Dredd tilted his head a little, but didn’t grunt. Not this time.

She gestured to the two civilians, who had stood up but otherwise not moved from where they’d been crouching, possibly because of Dredd’s stern expression as he stood above them. Herding them out like nervous chickens, she walked back out into the parking space, letting Dredd follow her out. Content that all six civilians were marshalled at the evacuation point and waiting demurely, she raised her right fist up to her mouth, activating her comm unit. “Psi-Judge Anderson to central. Tek-Division personnel required at my location to investigate subterranean narcotics factory. Seven bodies for processing and recyc. I will be bringing Judge Dredd in for Special Judicial Squad review, but have evidence indicating all of the charges against him are false and should be dismissed. Please annotate the outstanding warrant accordingly.”

The acknowledgement was as simple and terse as ever; in its way, that was almost reassuring. When she turned to start walking back to her bike, Dredd was already standing there, hands resting on his hips, his palms curled over the equipment on his belt.

She stared at him as he stood there; after perhaps a dozen seconds of him saying nothing, she raised an eyebrow at him.

Despite being half a dozen feet away, she could hear him exhale. “You should have read my mind to confirm my guilt or innocence.”

She shrugged, and walked past him, swinging herself onto her bike. “I didn’t need to. You’re incapable of breaking the law for no reason, and you had no reason to burn down that building, let alone murder those inside it and set fire to their dog. Devotion to the law is such an integral part of your character that it not only drowns everything else out, it would be impossible to change it without other fundamental changes in who you are.”

He was still standing there… only now, her position on the bike put him within maybe eighteen inches of her, and he was still staring at her.

“It was still the most expedient method for steering the investigation in its initial stages. Alternatively, you should have placed me under arrest immediately, and put me in interrogation via the SJS.” To anyone who hadn’t spent months working with him, his tone might sound accusatory.

When she stared at him, it felt – just for an instant – as if he wanted to step back. “If I were any other Judge, you wouldn’t be telling me that I should’ve dragged you to a Psi-Judge to have your brain probed. If I were any other Judge, you would’ve refused to go into interrogation, and gone to investigate the charges yourself.”

If he intended to project an aura of disapproval, he was failing. In the past, she’d felt him put up a wall of disapproval so strong that hardened criminals had sat down on the floor just at the jut of his chin. She refused to even let her abilities brush against his mind, although she was suddenly so tired that it felt like her teeth were statically charged. “If you want me to go walking through your mind, you need to ask nicely. And maybe buy me dinner first.”

When he didn’t answer, she cycled the bike engine up and put her helmet on. She waited until he was settled before sending the signal from her Lawmaster that activated his bike’s engine. As she settled her hands onto the grips, she heard the faint change in tone over her helmet’s speakers that indicated he – or someone else – was about to send her a message.

“I’d cook you dinner first.”

Her head snapped around to look at him, but he was just sitting there, looking relaxed. She wanted to push, to see what he was feeling, but it would’ve felt hypocritical after what she’d just told him, without the excuse of being involuntary. And yet, he was looking…

“We should go now, Judge Anderson.”

The bastard definitely looked smug now.


End file.
